The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer and convenience to users relates to real-time traffic monitoring systems. Currently, loop detectors and cameras are being used to monitor traffic conditions, such as traffic congestion, speeds of vehicles, etc. However, usage of loop detectors, consisting of physical inductive coils that are located on roadways and cameras to detect traffic conditions are expensive and may require a sophisticated fixed infrastructure.
Additionally, today's traffic monitoring systems may also consist of probe vehicles to monitor traffic. Probe vehicle based traffic monitoring applications typically provide better coverage with no additional installation or maintenance cost relative to a fixed infrastructure such as loop detectors or cameras. Probe vehicles are capable of monitoring traffic, reporting location and speed of the vehicle to a service provider, such as a traffic monitoring service provider. While probe vehicles may enhance a driver's travel experience, they are vulnerable to compromising the privacy of the driver. For instance, probe vehicles may provide frequent updates that may include the current location of the driver and even the identity of the vehicle's driver to the traffic monitoring service provider. Frequent updates of a vehicle's location might reveal a private location(s) such as a person's home, place of business, etc. and the driver may not want his/her identity known. In this regard, compromising the integrity of the driver's privacy may limit the number of individuals willing to subscribe to a real-time traffic monitoring service.
Anonymous collection of data samples in updates (e.g., where the driver's identity is not provided) sent from the driver's vehicle does not solve the privacy problem since these samples are still vulnerable to place identification (e.g., driver's home) and target tracking of the vehicle due to the spatial and temporal correlation between successive updates.
Given the above described problems, there is an existing need to enhance the privacy of drivers in a traffic monitoring system and reduce the costs associated a traffic monitoring system that uses a fixed infrastructure such as loop detectors and cameras.